On Sunday July 18, 4 of us traveled from Vancouver, BC to Arlington, WA for the Mirkwood Legacy Cup. This was the first time I had crossed the border to play Legacy. Just a month ago, I missed out on the SCG 5K in Seattle due to life stuff, which was a real bummer. Was pretty excited about this one due to the nice prize pool – UNL Lotus for 1st, 4x Seas for 2nd, with Forces and duals all the way down to 8th place.

Only thing was, I didn’t know much about the Legacy metagame in WA at all. I assumed it was a large playing field, judging from the SCG turnout, and so I expected a normal field of New Horizons, Zoo and Merfolk.

Rewind back 3 weeks…

In my mind, 90% of any tournament came down to preparation, preparation, preparation. I adapted this thinking due to my situation: I didn’t have a lot of time to playtest. So instead I started to theorize…a lot. I revised decklists without testing them. Thought about matchups in my head. Even wrote out sideboarding strategies, tweaked them, and did just about everything except playtest. Goldfished my decks a lot to make sure my mana came out correctly.

I’m a strong believer in playing a familiar deck rather than picking something new from scratch. I had 2 go-to decks that I was prepared to battle with: Eva Green and Merfolk. I felt that Merfolk wasn’t positioned well right now. Eva Green was decent against most aggro/control decks.

Team America was my favorite and it wasn’t in the picture 3 weeks ago. I could not solve the question vs. aggro with the deck, until I saw nitewolf9 beat face at Vestal with his new TA build. Inspired, I started to believe that I could have a decent level of success with the deck too.

That’s when I contacted nitewolf9 about his deck and the choices he made. He was incredibly helpful with advice, and even helped me with sideboarding strategies. More than anything, he helped me understand the evolution of the deck to where it was now. Rejuvenated, I decided to go with it. I had a game plan in my head vs. aggro and I was ready to rock.

Some variations from nitewolf9’s list. He was rocking the Predict tech, but I opted to go with Spell Snare. Dispel in the SB for Path/Swords/Force, and Ghastly Demise for more gas vs. aggro.

Maindeck Needle: because I hated to be down Game 1 vs. tribal aggro and wanted to answer Vial. This proved to be the wrong choice, as I’ll illustrate shortly. (Remember what I said about playing Super Theory Magic Player?)

Tournament Day

Nice turnout for the day. 60 players showed up to battle with magical cards. I can’t even remember playing in a tournament with more than a dozen people back home. The venue was nice and spacious and the café served good food. Small fish in a big pond – here we go.

Round 1 – vs. Steven Birklid playing Hypergenesis / Show & Tell

Steven was a super solid player and a nice guy. He went on to finish second overall and I learned a lot from playing him.

Game 1

I lose the die roll and keep a hand with Force but no Stifles. He opens by fetching lands, while I play draw-go and try to figure out what he’s playing. He plays City of Traitors and City of Brass. I am more confused. I Waste a couple of his nonbasics. While I’m digging for a threat to play, he goes for Show & Tell into Progenitus. Progenitus wins the race vs. Tombstalker in 2 swings.

Game 2

+2 Dispel, +2 Spell Pierce
-2 Snuff Out, -2 Smother

The problem was that I had no additional cards I wanted to side in for the maindeck Needles. I figured I might be able to mana denial his Flooded Strands by naming them with Needle – big mistake. Dazes were in, since the matchup was going to be permission-heavy.

My opener looked pretty good: right number of lands, a Force, a Ponder. Unfortunately, I had 2 Needles as well. I should have mulliganed – mistake #2. I open with Needle turn 2, but Steven knows what’s up. He fetches his land in play in response. I play another Needle and he fetches another fetchland in response. I just kept a hand with 2 completely dead cards…GG me.

Now, this didn’t seem too bad at the time. I was drawing into another Force, a Pierce, Dazes, the works.

He taps out and goes for Show & Tell #1. I Daze. He pitches Simian Spirit Guide. Shit.

I just wasted a counter, and had to Spell Pierce now to deny him the S&T.

I was putting a clock on him with Goyf when he decides to go for the Violent Outburst. I let him cascade into Hypergenesis #1 and go for the Force. He Forces my Force, I Force again. 4-for-3, not too shabby but that emptied most of my hand.

A couple of turns later, I couldn’t win the second counter war vs. Show & Tell #2. Progenitus beats me down again for the win.

Moral of the story: play a more optimal build, mulligan better, profit.

He was a solid player and although I lost Game 2, I had a lot of fun in the match. It was probably the most exciting match I played in the tournament, because of the epic counter-war.

0-1-0

Round 2 – vs. Steve playing New Horizons

Game 1

He wins the die roll and fetches duals for the first couple turns without playing anything. I couldn’t tell if he was playing Countertop or Thresh. No Horizon Canopy hits the table for all of Game 1.

He Wastes a couple of my lands but I draw enough to keep going. Soon we get into a war of attrition. He resolves a Terravore, I Smother it. My Goyf comes out. He tries to Swords Goyf, I have the counter. He goes for his own Goyf, I Spell Snare. I don’t remember everything about this game, except that I resolve a Tombstalker and the Demon goes the distance.

Pithing Needle wasn’t worth keeping, the only ability it could potentially shut off is Knight’s fetch ability or Canopy’s cantrip effect. Crypt and more removal was better, so that I could win the war of attrition.

I love siding out Daze Game 2, because my opponent played around it the whole game.

This time I find one of my Stifles and cut off his first fetchland. He tries to Wasteland my tropical island but I have the Stifle for that as well. We both have slow openings, though – sensing this, he counters 2 of my Brainstorms. I’m not one for countering that stuff, though, so I let his Ponders resolve. We play draw-go for awhile, each of us having one tropical island in play, 10+ cards in the graveyard and trying to find more land.

Mid-game I land a Sylvan Library – this soon becomes my MVP card. I find some threats, and manage to Snuff Out a Goyf. My Goyf starts beating for 3 or 4 consecutive turns.

There’s a bit of a standoff when he plays a 10/10 Knight vs. my lone Goyf, but he’s already at 1 life and can’t attack. I follow up with Tombstalker, and he Cliques my Force of Will. I put Force at the bottom of my library and topdeck Brainstorm. Brainstorm, see Tombstalker-fetch-fetch.

At this point, I make a mistake that could have cost me the game had he kept removal in his hand. He has a Trop, a Volcanic, and a Karakas in play. For some stupid reason I don’t put the Tombstalker I brainstorm back on top of my library. Had he topdecked a land on his turn, he could have re-played his Clique and taken my Tombstalker. Luckily he doesn’t and Tombstalker goes the distance…again. I love evasive threats. I hate bad play mistakes on my end.

1-1-0

Round 3 – vs. Adam playing Mono Blue Countertop

Adam was playing a bit of a homebrew package that I had difficulty deciphering G1. He played the Countertop package alongside Standstill, Factories, Dazes and Stifles. Adam also played Fetchlands with mono U to maximize his Brainstorms/Tops.

Game 1

He wins the die roll but has to mulligan to 5. He resolves a Top but I have the Spell Snare to counter his Counterbalance. I don’t let him resolve anything the rest of the way. A 5/6 Goyf goes the distance.

Game 2

+2 Spell Pierce, +3 Grip, +1 EE
-4 Daze, -2 Smother

He got me good this game.

I keep a hand with 2 Goyfs, 2 Grips and some counters.

I go for the Spell Snare on his turn 2 Standstill and he Dazes back. I’m forced to break the Standstill; he plays Top. Fortunately he doesn’t find Counterbalance, but he Stifles me and denies me green mana. I can’t find G to play my spells, and even discard a third Goyf. He eventually lands 2 factories and kills me.

Game 3

Again I resolve Sylvan Library early and start finding counters for his counters. This time I am able to Stifle his fetchlands, and 4/5 Goyf starts beating down. I Pithing Needle his Top, and sandbag counters for Counterbalance. He doesn’t draw it, and I counter an Echoing Truth to go the distance with Goyf.

Sylvan Library's definitely proved its worth.

2-1-0

Round 4 – vs. Martin playing Lands

I have to admit I am not too familiar with the lands matchup. I’m thinking Pithing Needle will be key to the matchup, for stopping Wasteland or Maze of Ith shenanigans.

Game 1

He goes first and plays land, Exploration. I don’t have a Force in hand – shit. He follows up with Manabond and Wastelock with the Loam package online. I play a Goyf but he Tolaria West’s for the Explosives. I scoop to a lost cause.

This game was a lot closer. I still lost, but early Sylvan Library kept me in the game. Unfortunately, Library plus fetches couldn’t find Crypt or Trap and so he played Loam at least 10 times.

Early on I deny him green mana – Explosives his Mox Diamond, Waste his Savannah. He has to play draw-go for a few turns until he finds a Mishra’s Factory. I respond with Tombstalker but he has a Maze of Ith. He follows with a second Maze and a tabernacle. So basically we have a classic standoff, my Tombstalker looking at his factory. He Rishadan Ports my only green mana source every turn so that I cannot play my Goyfs.

Meanwhile I am frantically searching for one of 5 answers in the deck with Library + fetchlands – Crypt, 2 Traps, 2 Needles. I can use Needle to shut off his Maze or the recurring Wasteland that he’s trying to set up. Because he Ports on my upkeep I am still able to Grip his Manabond, but he plays a backup copy.

I keep my head in the game, because I’m thinking that if I can find the first Needle, I can stop his Wasteland. I do find the Needle, but at this point he’s already Loamed several Factories into play and alpha strikes vs. my lone ‘Stalker for the win.

EDIT: he has Glacial Chasm by the time I find my first Needle. At this point even if I Needle Maze/Factory I still need to find my Graveyard hate. Admittedly I didn't think about Needling Factory, I could have bought myself extra turns by stopping his Factory alpha strike. I had a basic Swamp to pay for Tabernacle so I should have stopped his Factory not Wasteland ... *groan*

Tough game, tough loss. I pretty much knew what I had to do, but the deck wasn’t cooperating.

2-2-0

I decide to keep playing as I have teammates who are still in it, and there’s a slim chance of T8’ing with a 4-2 record. Plus I came all the way down here, might as well play it out.

Round 5 – vs. Stephen playing New Horizons

Very nice guy based in Seattle, we chat for a bit about the Magic scene there. They have weekly Legacy tournaments? Sign me up!

Game 1

This played out very similarly to my previous New Horizons match. We play attrition-denial until eventually I land Tombstalker. He goes the distance.

This game was super close and down to the wire. I resolve an early Sylvan Library again – I’m getting fairly good at drawing the 1 copy in my opener. We start Stifling each others’ fetchlands. We Wasteland each other, so once again we are both trying to find mana/answers. At one point I win a critical counter war to resolve a Goyf. I see 3 Goyfs in my hand this game and no Tombstalkers. He Crypts my graveyard but it seems OK since I just play more Goyfs. Eventually double Goyfs help me get there.

3-2-0

I was pretty happy with the fact that Team America managed to out-attrition New Horizons in 2 separate matchups. My sideboard has a lot of additional counters/removal to hopefully win the attrition war.

Round 6 – vs. Eric playing Merfolk

I’m glad to play Merfolk, because at this point I wanted to see how my deck would do against it. Eric was a real cool guy who stuck around afterwards for a couple practice matches when I told him I needed to playtest :-)

He was playing the 16 lords version without Standstill. Unfortunately, he ran into a couple of unfavorable matches that day vs. Zoo.

Game 1

He wins the die roll but mulligans to 6. He doesn’t draw much gas at all, and his Vial gets countered. He finds no Wastelands, and I am able to play Library and land a 5/6 Goyf that goes the distance.

Game 2

+2 Ghastly Demise, +2 Spell Pierce
-4 Daze

This was a closer game. He finds 3 Wastelands early and forces me to play draw-go. He’s got Stifles, which I walk into as I wasn’t expecting Merfolk to be playing it anymore. I play Library again and this time he counters. I follow up with Goyf. He plays Coralhelm Commander, I Smother him.

Going into mid-game, Eric’s got double vial set up with 2 and 3 counters, respectively. He vials in Kira, I Stifle. He vials in a Lord of Atlantis, I give him the thumbs up. He plays Kira normally on his turn and passes. I find Explosives with Brainstorm, and use the opportunity to blow up both Vials. So now it’s Goyf vs. Lord and Kira. He’s down to 6 life though to my 12 life, and has to block the Goyf. From that point on, he plays the cantripping merfolk and other creatures but has to chump the Goyf repeatedly until he finally runs out of threats.

This was a bit of a weird game. He drew 3 Wastelands, 3 Stifles early on but wasn’t able to close out on me. I don’t think he had a second island for quite some time.

Team America is a very nice deck. Preparation helped a great deal, and the sideboarding notes I brought in saved me a lot of time during matches. Funny how I tweaked the deck to combat aggro, yet faced only one Merfolk deck. C’est la vie.

I don’t own any Jace, but may need to borrow some for the next tournament. He could have come in handy, esp. vs. Lands.

It was cool to see a big turnout and chat with some really cool people. I saw Max McCall play Dredge and recognized another gentleman from the Starcitygames coverage playing Zoo. Out of 60 people I finished 13th, so I’m happy with the result.

I stayed around to watch Top 8. A fellow team member, Sean, took 5th place with Aggro Loam. He played great and got a Tropical Island for his troubles. 2 other team members from Vancouver unfortunately had to play each other and knocked each other out of contention.

I’ll keep testing Team America, and would really welcome suggestions on the build. nitewolf9’s already convinced me to take Needles out of the maindeck and I'm inclined to take him him up on that suggestion. I’m always open to new ideas.

May i ask why you didn't needle his Factories R4 G2? Wouldn't that have bought you time to look for Needle#2 for his Maze?

Plague Sliver

07-20-2010, 01:55 PM

May i ask why you didn't needle his Factories R4 G2? Wouldn't that have bought you time to look for Needle#2 for his Maze?

He got his factories very, very late. In fact, he even told me he should have gone for them much earlier rather than the wastelands with Intuition/Loam. I felt that I needed to Needle the Wasteland to buy me more time against Wastelock. But looking back, you're probably right - if I could just hold a Land in my hand and wait for the needle to come it would have been fine. I didn't actually need mana to play anything, if I found Crypt or Ravenous Trap they play for free. I was also paying for Tabernacle on Tombstalker with a basic Swamp, so that mana wasn't in danger.

In summary: you're right. I didn't put myself in a position to maximize my chances of winning. I believe he did find recursive Explosives for my Needle, so it didn't matter if I couldn't find grave/dredge hate. Nonetheless, I need to play the matchup more often.

GtF

07-20-2010, 02:14 PM

If your opponent vials in something, unless you stifle it before the card is in play, once it's in play it's too late to stifle. I could see situations where they do it so quick you don't get a chance to respond, but just pointing out that it's not really legal to stifle it after it's in play. The way it reads, it seems like that's what happened.
Anyway, glad to see another person playing the deck. It's still pretty good I think. Also glad that my intuition about needle is correct.
What did you think of spell snare? Would it be better/worse than something like preordain or spell pierce?

SlopeeJ

07-20-2010, 02:23 PM

I had this problem when I first started playing Merfolk, tapping vial and putting the creature down. You need to tap vial and ask if it resolves before you put your creature down. Doesn't matter if you put the creature down, you have to rewind so they can respond. Showing them the creature is a play mistake and that is how it read to me.

You are correct though, once the vial ability resolves the active player gets priority just like any other spell/ability

Plague Sliver

07-20-2010, 04:02 PM

That's exactly what happened. He put Kira on the battlefield before I could respond to it. He was playing Stifles too so he should have known. By having to rewind, I got extra information.

GtF - I thought Spell Snare was great just because it took out Goyf all day. Spell Pierce is more of a SB card to me, because it's dead in some matchups. I may go back to testing with Preordain if I were to run the Predict package, otherwise I'd rather have a counter or even Thoughtseize. I tested with one Preordain the day prior and felt 8 draw effects were enough.

magicplaya10

07-21-2010, 12:21 AM

Hey I was that kid that was explaining to you about type 1 there.

I played TES to a 4-2 record as well. Congrats on your finish, you played tight. I think in the last round, I was playing right next to you against goblins.

you could have entered the type 1 and won 4 beta sinkholes =P

Grats again!!

DerFern

07-21-2010, 02:24 AM

He got his factories very, very late. In fact, he even told me he should have gone for them much earlier rather than the wastelands with Intuition/Loam. I felt that I needed to Needle the Wasteland to buy me more time against Wastelock. But looking back, you're probably right - if I could just hold a Land in my hand and wait for the needle to come it would have been fine. I didn't actually need mana to play anything, if I found Crypt or Ravenous Trap they play for free. I was also paying for Tabernacle on Tombstalker with a basic Swamp, so that mana wasn't in danger.

In summary: you're right. I didn't put myself in a position to maximize my chances of winning. I believe he did find recursive Explosives for my Needle, so it didn't matter if I couldn't find grave/dredge hate. Nonetheless, I need to play the matchup more often.
Are your sure about that? As far as my experience with TA goes, you need to put a fast clock on the Lands player in order to win the matchup. Since you only have 7-9 creatures out there, Maze outright destroys your game plan. I thing it´s right to needle Maze in this kind of situation, especially if you don´t have access to Extirpate...